Necrons are space robot zombie ghosts.
They don't talk, and they are pure evil. Well, they do talk now... And now they're not so much 'evil' as 'crazy'. But hey, they're Tomb Kings... IN SPAAAAAACE!
What is not to love about them?
Oh, and they aren't Marines. Honestly. Ignore their WS/BS/S/T 4 statline, their S4 AP5 Rapid Fire guns, and their 4+ armor saves, they totally aren't Marines (anymore, though Immortals do have a 3+ armor save).

Recently got an update by Matt Ward himself, and yes, they were broken at one point due to all flyers in the main rulebook being broken (since no army at the time had a good counter to them besides other flyers) and Necron flyers in particular being spammable, but if you try that now they're going to get shot down as soon as they show up, and if you do not try to abuse their flyer spammability, Necrons are a well balanced and a challenging army, highly reliant on different battlefield cheating tactics that most other armies use, though for Necrons you have to pick one of those strategies and stick with it and build your army to support each other. As for their changes, where do we start? Well, you never have to think about the words "Phase Out" ever again... And holy shit! They have vehicles other than the Monolith! Necron Wraiths are gone, replaced by Canoptek Wraiths, which look like the old Wraiths mixed with Tomb Spyders, and Pariahs are gone too (but you could still use your old Pariah models as Lychguard, since Lychguard also have Warscythes).

6th ed has dropped and the new FAQ's strongly favor the Necrons. Due to Flyer status of the Scythes, and Gauss weapons glancing on a armor pen of 6, Necrons are incredibly better off than they were earlier. It is to be expected since they were written with 6th ed in mind. That being said, the new benefits will be covered in a new section further down.

Necron mobility is another easily-underestimated point available to catch unwary foes off-guard. Between 20-man warrior blobs that can teleport across the board (without scatter if the Zahndrekh-Obyron combo gets rolling) to fast Annihilation Barges and Wraiths to the quickest transport in the entire game, the Necrons have lots of options to throw off the 'slow-moving gunline' assumption many players label them with. Many of these movement options allow unpredictable and unique ways to slip past your opponents or redeploy mid-game (including the famous Monolith's deep-strike-dimensional-corridor combo), leaving half an enemy army with no targets while simultaneously stepping in to deliver a killing blow to the other half.

And let's not forget that the Necron models look really nice, you won't get hateful glares from most players like those who use some of Matt Ward's otherarmies, you have enough unit variety to pull off pretty much any style of play you want, your army is lacking in any deadweight units unlikecertainotherarmies and pretty much every unit can find a use in any army build without having to sink a ludicrous amount of points into them. Except for Flayed Ones. Everyone hates them.

You have some of the nastiest HQ and Elite units in the entire game (a kitted out Necron Overlord or Destroyer Lord has an advantage over most of the generic HQ units in the game), your special characters are all very nifty, and you have not one, but two Abaddon-esque close combat monsters with a fighting chance to rip off the Swarmlord's head and shit down its neck. Times are good for the zombiebots. Pretty much the only thing you lack is a close combat oriented troop choice. But you have so many absurdly deadly melee units in most other sections that this may not even matter. And you can still troll mech armies with Gauss rules, tearing off their hull points, at which point your now numerous anti-armor units can simply just walk up, say "problem, commander?" and finish the job.

And unlikesomearmies you don't have any excess amount of trouble with any specific kind of army whether they be mechanized or foot slogging; few and elite or numerous and blobby; shooty or choppy, you can handle them all without too much trouble.

And you still hold the title of "most easily painted army ever."

Also for players that really do love to crush other peoples hopes and dreams. Necrons have the largest number of troll-tastic units out of any of the currently of released codices. Shooting your enemies with their own vehicles, killing whole hordes with a single punch from a special character who CAN NOT DIE, and potentially killing 1/6th of the enemy's army on their first movement phase. When you absolutely positively must troll rape your opponent, accept no substitute. Playing Necrons is likely to make you lose friends, or get your gaming table flipped in great frustration by an angry opponent.

Note: Canoptek units don't have Reanimation Protocols since they aren't really Necrons but machines left behind to guard the tombs. To compensate for this and account for their more robotic style, they are all fearless.

Gauss Weapons: this type of weapon always glances on a 6 when rolling to pen. So back in 5th ed, even your basic Warriors could cause weapon destroyed or immobilized results on ANY vehicle. Yes even a Landraider! But now with 6th ed, this has been turned up a notch. Due to the new hullpoints system, glancing hits strip off hp's without rolling on the damage result table. But who cares! With some mathhammer, here's what a full Necron Warrior unit can do to a Landraider:

20 shots fired at BS4 means 13 hits. Rolling to pen needing a 6, 2 glancing hits. This means a Landraider is down to half it's life in one round of shooting.

For the veterans, yes it's 3rd ed all over again, where even our basic guns can kill your vehicles. Overall a very good weapon type that can kill light (who the fuck are you kidding?) vehicles easily.

Flyers: Oh boy, this is the best part. With the changes to vehicles and how disembarking works, the only other transport Necrons have just became more awesome. The Nightscythe is by far the most reliable transport anyone can hope for because of the new FAQ. Reason number one: Invasion Beams. These allow your guys to disembark from a Nightscythe before or after it moves, but not if it moves more than 36". But here's the awesome part- if you disembark when the Scythe has moved up to 24", you can still fire regularly instead of Snap Fire (which would normally only allow them to hit on 6's). With the new Rapid Fire rules this means that you have a 48" threat range with Warriors and Immortals! And if you go beyond 24" you can still Snap Fire. This is a considerable boost and makes the Nightscythe a premier transport. Also, when regular flying transport got blown in the air all it's passengers would get S10 AP2 autohits. But Necrons? No, you just put scythe passengers to upcoming reserves.

Power Weapons: Due to changes to power weapons (they now have AP values), power swords were the reason behind a massive shitstorm known as "sword or axe" (whether Lychguard weapons counted as S5 AP3 I2 or S6 AP2 I1 Power weapons).

New FAQ states they count as power swords, not axes. and thus, everyone stopped using Lychguard. Not really a shock, they are called Hyperphase swords after-all.

Necron Overlord - Your basic HQ choice, and extremely customizable. Your basic Overlord will cost you the same amount of points as 90 searchlights, and there's a nice list of wargear upgrades to choose from. Its like a Build-A-Bear workshop, except instead of a teddy bear, you're building a trolltastic homicidal robotic Egyptian Space Pharaoh Zombie Ninja. But seriously, you can kit out an Overlord for just about any situation. Well armed, he can take on Mephiston and win with ease. In terms of sheer value, this is the best HQ in the codex. For your convenience, here's a rundown on all the possible wargear options for your Overlord:

Weaponry

Staff of Light: S5 AP3 Assault 3. Unless your HQ is Vargard Obyron (why would you do that?!), take this as your go-to upgrade. It's 3 shots, and as a character those also can be precision shots. It's great for adding a bit of extra oomph to your shooty units. Default to this unless you expect your guys to be getting into CC.

Hyperphase Sword: A power sword. A cheap upgrade, but for ten points more you get a Warscythe.

Gauntlet of Fire: It's a flamer, and also a close combat weapon that allows you to reroll to hit and to wound. Not bad, but it's still not a Warscythe.

Voidblade: Rending and Entropic Strike... but look, what have I been telling you about all the other close combat weapons? Just scroll down one.

Warscythe: Now we're talking. For a measly ten points, you get a S7 AP1 close combat weapon (Not quite- you get a +2 on the model's strength, which usually resolves as S7 anyway) with Armourbane. Anything that you move into base contact with will be cut to ribbons as long as the Overlord survives until his own initiative step. Unless you're playing a purely casual game, don't take any other CCW.

Gadgets

Phylactery: Normally when an Overlord come back due to Reanimation Protocols, he only has 1 wound. If you take a Phylactery, he gets d3 on his first reanimation. It doesn't seem like much, but its a cheaper upgrade that will make your Warlord that much harder to slay.

Mindshackle Scarabs: Terminator Squads and Monstrous creatures got you down? This is your solution to making sure your Initiative 2, 1 attack squad doesn't roll over and die to dedicated close combat units. Every Necron Lord or Overlord that you expect to be getting into close combat should take this. You have no excuses, you want this upgrade. After you get assaulted but before any blows are struck, you randomly choose a model in base contact with the Lord or Overlord with MSS. That model takes a leadership test on 3d6. If it fails (which is 50% for Ld9), that model HITS ITS OWN UNIT D3 times INSTEAD OF ATTACKING. Oh, and if in challenge your opponent would hit HIMSELF with his super-optimised-for-a-challenge weapon. Out of all the troll-tastic things in the Necron codex, the funniest thing has to be watching a Hive Tyrant assault a lowly warrior squad, never get to actually attack, and then die after a few rounds of the Necron Overlord going "Why are you hitting yourself??". Even more hilarious against psykers, as they must activate their force weapon if they have warp-charge left - nothing is more satisfying than Mephiston or Swarmlord insta-killing himself the turn he charges.

Sempiternal Weave: This gives you a 2+ armor save. For the 15 points you'll spend, you'll never regret taking it. If you're in a Catacomb Command Barge, you'll get +1 which unfortunately doesn't stack with the Sempiternal Weave, so may not be as useful if you're in the pimp-mobile until it blows up. Which it will. If on a barge (and feeling overly confident), you can skip this and take a Phase Shifter for a 2+/3++ without spending the extra 15 points.

Tesseract Labyrinth: Makes it so that a model in base contact with the bearer has to take a wound test or automatically die with no saves allowed. One Use Only. Alright for the leader of a Monstrous Creature or Character hunting squad.

Tachyon Arrow: A single use S10 AP1 infinite range shooting attack(Tau beware, we have even better guns). Kind of expensive, but could be somewhat useful if you're lacking Anti-Tank. Pro-tip: If you take this, put your Overlord in a squad with a Chronometron bearing Harbinger of Eternity Cryptek for the rerolls.

Resurrection Orb: Covered elsewhere. This is a good one if you're putting your Overlord in a squad, as a +1 to your reanimation rolls never hurts. If you're using a Command Barge, use the points elsewhere.

Phase Shifter: Costs an arm and a leg compared to the other upgrades listed, but usually worth it in all but the smallest games. The Phase Shifter gives you a 3+ invulnerable save. Now your Overlord is safe even from Tau Railguns.

Phaeron: Gives him and his unit Relentless. Used to be bread and butter in 5th ed due to being able to move and shoot your rapid fire guns at long range. Now that you can do that anyway, this upgrade is almost worthless, unless you're in a situation where you actually want to charge with Necron Warriors... (Pro-tip: don't).

Destroyer Lord - He misses out on some of the wargear that the Overlord gets, and can't take a Royal Court, but on the other hand, he gains Jump Infantry, T6, Preferred Enemy (Everything!) which gets conferred to whatever unit he joins, and a free Warscythe instead. Great as a beatstick thanks to his better Toughness; stick him with a unit of other Jump Infantry (like Wraiths or Triarch Praetorians) and send him into the thick of it. Remember to give him Sempiternal Weave so he can ignore petty AP3 power weapons. Other wargear worth considering would be Mindshackle Scarabs, Res-Orbs (he doesn't have access to a Phase Shifter, so this is the second best way to keep him alive longer), and if you're really desperate, the Tachyon Arrow (Preferred Enemy = reroll that 1!).

The following are special characters. Unlike CSMs or Dark Eldar they are not here to be a close combat monsters (though some of them can) but rather to add other ways of using your army with super special trolling rules. If you want an Abaddon-esque killing machine it's better to take Overlord and kit him appropriately. It should be noted that if you take some of these, you need to build your army around them using their rules to the fullest if you do not want to be curb-stomped because you just blew 200+ points on a model you cannot use fully and now have a 200+ points handicap.

Imotekh the Stormlord - The traditional 200+ point named hero unit. At first glance, he looks fantastic, but most of his abilities are mediocre. Imotekh comes with a 2+ armor save, 3+ invuln save, a Phylactery, and a Gauntlet of Fire. Oh and the Staff of Destroyer, which is a STR 6, AP2 weapon which is fired from a straight 2D6 line from his base! One use only though, so it's not worth it anyway. He can make Flayed Ones deep strike perfectly next to a single enemy unit, which would be great if you could assault after deep striking, but as things stand, Flayed Ones suck and dropping next to any unit will just ensure that they die during your opponents next turn. Imotekh can also summon bolts of lightning down to zap people, but this ability is too random to be of much use(put him in the same unit as a destroyer to make it better). His lightning storm works better in higher points games, but it have two major drawbacks: it would work only while night fight turned on (while your army is mostly shooty) and it would also zzap your allies as well as enemies if you try to bring some searchlight with them. One of his more useful abilities is to always start the game with night fighting turned on, and he can roll to keep it turned on in subsequent turns (unless you're versing Dark Eldar, in which case leave him at home). In addition, he always seizes the Initiative on 4+ except against Orks, who he can't seize Initiative against at all (CUZ GREEN IS BEST, YA GITZ!). He's overall a nasty motherfucker in an army full of nasty motherfuckers, but there's better options for his points. He is considered to be cheese in apocalypse games, however, where his night fighting and lightning bolts can be exploited to far greater effect.

Nemesor Zahndrekh - The senile old coot is actually a surprisingly good tactical HQ choice, giving nifty bonuses to your units each turn and even taking away nifty bonuses from enemy units. He even has a Resurrection Orb. He's not very useful in close combat, but he works really well with Vargard Obyron, as described below. Something to consider is that this guy is only 5 points more than a standard Overlord with the same wargear so if you were going to build a similar Overlord anyway you could consider paying the 5 extra points for his ability. His debuff is surprisingly potent against certain units. For example, get him to remove Furious Charge from a big blob of Boyz and suddenly you're just being charged by Guardsmen with CC weapons. And his Phased Reinforcements rule is more perfect than Trazyn if you love messing with your opponent. Basically, hold as much as you can in Deep Strike Reserve, wait until your opponent's second turn, and then as soon as that flyer of theirs comes in (or anything else for that matter), basically dump everything you can behind their line. You're basically forcing them to react to a ton of threats and completely abandon their current strategy. Then whatever survives (Scarabs that come in this way will die horribly, but who cares?) will continue to fuck your opponent over. This approach usually works better in higher point games, and not even a greater god can help them if you're playing Apocalypse.

Vargard Obyron - The close combat HQ, this guy combines good WS with a Warscythe and strong hitting power, and can even make counter-attacks against enemies that miss before he attacks, up to a maximum of 9 attacks total(!). He can also teleport around the battlefield thanks to his special mantle, and perfect Deep Strikes if he lands next to Zahndrekh. Needless to say, he and Zahndrekh work pretty well together. Obyron is an excellent character to have in a Command Barge, since his high WS and Cleaving Counterblow ability ensure that he gets plenty of hits in with his Warscythe, while he has all the resilience of an Overlord. The only thing he lacks is a Phase Shifter, so be careful of Force Weapons and Monstrous Creatures. Unlike a Veiltek, Obyron is an IC and can join any unit, so get creative with him. Drop Zahndrekh and his unit out of a Night Scythe, then drop Obyron and a huge unit of Warriors right beside him. Join him up with a unit of Spyders and teleport them across the board. If you have access to the new Sentry Pylons, do the same thing with them for far greater effect. Or if you are fighting a vehicle heavy army then there is one particularly cheesy tactic. Stick him with a royal court consisting of five cryptek harbingers of the storm, and one lord with a ressurection orb. Turn one teleport them up the board and unleash 20 haywire shots into that pesky land raider. The lord is to keep them alive longer. for added cheese add a lightning field to the unit to make them less chargeable.

Illuminor Szeras - It's like Dr. Frankenstein, except an undead spider robot. He's a Cryptek character and not an Overlord, so he can't take a Royal court. Sadface. His statline is nothing special, just a standard Cryptek with an extra wound; however, he does give a bonus to one unit of Warriors or Immortals in your army, giving them either +1 Strength, BS, or Toughness for the remainder of the game (A full unit of immortals with +1 toughness will really live up to their name, especially if you have a resurrection orb nearby, seriously, they'll make plague marines look like pussies, combine with Anrakyr to really troll your opponent). He also has defensive grenades and a S8 AP2 shooting attack; if there's a "shooty" hero unit in the Necrons codex, it's Szeras. He's also the cheapest named character in the codex, and would probably see more play if only he could take a Royal court.

Orikan the Diviner - The other Cryptek character, Orikan suffers from the same basic flaw as Szeras: Lack of a Royal Court. So why use him? Well, he can re-roll reserve rolls for one turn, has an AP 2 power weapon that re-rolls to hit, and forces your enemy to go through Difficult Terrain on turn 1. Also, on each turn, you roll a d6- if the die roll is less than or equal to the turn you're currently on (so on Turn 3 you'd have to roll a 3 or lower) then "The Stars Are Right", Orikan goes Super-Saiyan, and gains a massive stat boost (similar in power to a C'tan Shard, possibly even better in close combat due to his 3+ invulnerable save), complete with a 'bwahahaha!' in the rule description. However, if you roll less than or equal to the turn you're on a second time, Orikan powers down, and goes back to his original profile. Kind of a mixed bag, but beastly if you have Lady Luck's favor. Combine with a C'tan with Writhing Worldscape (turns difficult terrain into dangerous) to cause your opponent to lose approx 1/6 of his army in his first movement phase. Or not, because dangerous terrain tests allow armor saves in 6th. Still devastating against Hordes, but not so much with MEQ and elite armies. Always stick him with a Chronometron: keeping him in empowered mode for even one extra turn will pay back the crpytek's cost if he's in melee combat.

Anrakyr the Traveller - Comes with a Tachyon Arrow and a Warscythe, and gains the Counter-Attack and Furious Charge special rules. If you have Immortals, one unit of Immortals become "Pyrrhian Eternals" for no additional cost, which are basically just like regular Immortals but with Counter-Attack and Furious Charge, making them not quite so shitty in assault. They're still dead against dedicated combat units, but this can provide a critical edge against Tactical Marines and the like. His real strength is his ability to hack enemy vehicles, which means you can cause your mech-happy Imperial Guard opponent to shoot himself with his own tanks. WOLOLO. Be sure to thank your kind opponent for letting you borrow his vehicle.

NOTE: Due to Furious Charge, in the first round of combat Anrakyr can potentially insta-gib anything thats Toughness 4 or lower!

Trazyn the Infinite - aka "The Tarpit Breaker". Trollzyn is probably the best HQ choice you can get if you just love messing with your opponent. He excels at wiping out hordes, thanks to his Empathic Obliterator- if he kills a model in a unit, he wounds other units like the one he killed on a 4+. This means that if he kills even a single Ork Boy, every single other Ork Boy in the mob takes a wound on a 4+, usually resulting in 10+ casualties in full strength hordes. On top of that, he can cause the Orks' Nob to go nuts and hit his own Boyz, further adding to the carnage. If he dies, he can just possess another Lychguard, Cryptek, Necron Lord, or Necron Overlord on the table and keep going as normal. And the cherry on top? He's scoring. So if you want an objective-taking unit that just will not die, stick Trollzyn into a full sized group of Sword and Shield Lychguard and add a Lord with Res-Orb for good measure. Bonus points if you do this during an Emperor's Will mission and watch your opponent fail to knock out this unit after shooting everything he's got at it for literally the whole game. Unfortunately, sticking him on a Command Barge does not allow his hammer of wrath and sweep attacks to benefit from the Empathic Obliterator (though it does allow him to get to objectives quickly to score late game).

Royal Court: Any Necron Overlord or Overlord level special character (Imotekh, Zahndrekh, Anrakyr, or Trazyn) can take a Royal Court, which is composed of up to five Necron Lords and/or up to five Crypteks. Royal Court members can either be left together in one unit, or can be individually split off to join your squads of Warriors, Immortals, Deathmarks, or Lychguard; thanks to the FAQ, if you take 2 overlords you can double these up in squads. And in higher point levels, you can now take FOUR Overlords and FOUR Royal Courts. This can get expensive, both in points and in money, but giving every one of your Warrior Squads four Eldrich Lances will ensure that they can make mincemeat of anything that comes within 36" of them. Remember a Destroyer Lord is not an Overlord and cannot take a court.

Necron Lords - Basically a mini version of the Necron Overlord, with 1 Wound and 2 Attacks (compared to the Overlord's 3 of each) but they still hit as hard as any Overlord at a fraction of the cost, and can be kitted out similarly (though misses out on the Tachyon Arrow and Phylactery). Basically equivalent to sergeants in Imperial armies, or Ork Nobz in a squad of Boyz.

Crypteks - Essentially Necron "priests/wizards" employed by Overlords to use their space magic (otherwise known as science) to assist in battle. The stock-standard versions are nothing special, but they can be upgraded to Harbingers, which at this point they gain nifty special wargear that nothing else in the codex gets. Unfortunately, apart from the cool staff each Harbinger initially comes with, you can not give the same piece of awesome additional wargear to two Harbingers from the same Royal Court. You can however take a second Overlord in your army, which would give you access to a second Royal Court as well. And a third. And a fourth. This allows you to take multiples of the same piece of epic gear without worrying about the whole "two girls wearing the same dress to a party" syndrome.

Harbinger of Despair - Mostly equipped with crappy Morale-effecting abilities (pro-tip: attach him to a unit of Deathmarks to make one of those abilities significantly better trolltastically broken as fuck). Comes equipped with the Nightmare Shroud, an ability that can choose any enemy unit within 18" and force them to take a Morale Check which, while it is useless against Fearless models or high-leadership Models (half chance against Leadership 10), it is rather funny to see a bunch of Terminators or blobby units run away until they regroup! Can also take the awesome free (Well somewhat expensive but worth it)-deep-strike item, the Veil of Darkness... though, Obyron's Ghostwalk Mantle is a lot better.

Harbinger of Destruction - Exactly what it says on the tin. Equipped with a nasty shooting weapon, defensive grenades for the squad, and the Solar Pulse, which turns night fighting on or off. When playing with super heavies in an Apocalypse game, using Solar Pulse is an "I Win" button. Oh look, that Baneblade can't see far enough to shoot for a turn. But my Pylon still can! Using this essentially gives you a turn where the enemy can't touch you at range. It can also be used to turn the night fight off, in case your opponent benefit from it more than you (i.e. he have a lot of Night Vision units or dirt cheap expendable vehicles with searchlights).

Harbinger of Eternity - Put one of these in your anti-monstrous creature squad. He comes with a close combat weapon which comes with some severe debuffs if you wound an enemy with it. He can re-roll any single d6 roll that his unit makes per phase, which is always handy, and can get 3+ invincible. Never take this. It's a ton of points for a 3+ invun on a single wound model. He's also the only Cryptek that has a melee weapon instead of a gun. The melee weapon, as mentioned earlier, does cause some severe debuffs if it causes a wound, which it never will, since the Cryptek holding it has a single Attack at Initiative 2, and the stick doesn't have an AP value. He is only useful for his D6 re-roll. A way to use his aeon stave better is to get a few scarabs on his trail, as they have entropic strike. Afterwards, just say attacking The hive and the scarabs have wounded him, this will make the aeonstave wound the hive (as the hive has no invunerable save). The aeonstave can be effective if you just get that bonus to it.

Harbinger of the Storm - Disgustingly good against armor, as his Haywire stick will make vehicles drop hull points faster than 1d4chan drops puns. Armies that like to deep strike and assault are also not fond of this guy, as his other wargear can fry anyone that gets too close for comfort. Which looks good on paper (both are D6 Str 8 AP5 but the Ether Crystal gains one more attack if there is another Ether Crystal - Fancy a well cooked Ork or roasted Guardsmen?) but you'd need to consider that Ether Crystal only works when the enemy has deepstriked within 6" of the Cryptek, but the Lighting Field is good against charging units. While absolutely deadly against AP5+ both may struggle against MEQ or TEQ.

Harbinger of Transmogrification - Should be left to protect the centre of your gunline. Can equip an infinite-range weapon which screws over your opponent's armour, the ability to slow down enemy assaults, and a staff which makes difficult terrain. Combine with Writhing Worldscape for the lols.

Basic Cryptek - Yeah, you don't have to upgrade them. They each come with a Staff of Light as basic equipment, that S5 AP3 Assault 3 gun is well worth their cheap cost. The downside is that they don't do much else if you don't upgrade them. Still, having 5 Necron Lords and 5 Crypteks, all with Staffs of Light, riding around in a Ghost Ark will cause plenty of tears from Space Marine players; 30 AP3 shots will kill anything that isn't terminators.

Necron Warriors - The closest thing the Necrons have to tarpits and cannon fodder, these guys are basically Cronscripts (get it?). They've lost their 3+ save from the previous codex, gaining a paltry 4+ save instead; on the other hand, they're now much cheaper, so you can field more of them, and they're not the only Troops choice anymore so you don't even have to take them if you don't want to. Just about as good as Space Marines at shooting, and a little cheaper too, but they suffer in close combat, where their I2 and 1 Attack make them worse than Tactical Marines, but still perfectly capable of laying down the hurt on anything weaker than that. Good for parking on an objective or just swamping the field with bodies. And with gauss rules, you can quickly strip an enemy vehicle of it's Hull Points. That's right, your basic troops can once again glance a Land Raider into dust.

Immortals - Moved to Troops in the new codex. These guys are basically what Warriors used to be, 3+ save and all, except they cost 1 point less and they have better guns. Start with gauss blasters, can take tesla carbines for free, both options provide nice anti-infantry dakka. Like Warriors, they're still terrible in close combat. But few things are more satisfying than looking at an opposing Tyranid player's face as a few squads of immortals wipe out pretty much all of his gaunts in one turn with Tesla carbine fire.

Tesla vs. Gauss - One of the biggest decisions around Immortals is whether to field tesla or gauss weapons. Typically, the biggest deciding factor is the tradeoff between rapid-fire and assault weapon types: Gauss immortals will want to stand in place, while a group of Tesla immortals can be expected to either stay outside 12" or fire immediately prior to charging. Mathematically, discounting these two points, the Tesla carbine is equal or superior against all but 4+ armor: (the math still works out in favor of tesla just a slight bump in favor of gauss on 4+ armor then tesla wins again vs MEQ and TEQ)

Tesla vs Gauss Mathhammer (Expected wounds per shot)

Armor Value

None

6+

5+

4+

3+

2+

Gauss Blaster

4/9

4/9

4/9

4/9

4/27

2/27

Tesla Carbine

6/9

5/9

4/9

3/9

2/9(6/27)

1/9(3/27)

Conclusion: If you know you'll be facing 4+ armor (ork 'ardboys, pretty much anything with warrior in the name (tau fire, necron, most of the aspect kind)), pack your bags with Gauss Blasters. If not, Tesla Carbines not only won't let you down, but occasionally rock much harder than expected.

The other issue is that Gauss can glance vehicles. Normally, this isn't a big deal, because you have warriors for that. But if you use an Immortal-only concept army, it might become important.

One final note on Tesla vs. Gauss - Necrons are typically the guys that don't worry much about anti-air, given the fantastic Night and Doom Scythes. However, if you don't want to bring them, triarch stalkers and tesla immortals give one a surprisingly decent AA option. Considering that one hits only on sixes (three times at that), a twin-linked Tesla carbine delivers an expected 11/12 hits per shot against a flier. That's really quite acceptable for smoking flying daemon princes, and while strength 5 won't faze a Heldrake it will at least give you an option against most fliers (AV11). Gauss guns, on the other hand, could drop a Heldrake or Stormraven, but will expect only 11/36 hits when twin-linked.

A word about resurrection orbs - The Necron infantry serves both as a gunline and as a cheap source of tough, gets-up-when-killed wounds. In order to supplement a 20-man warrior or 10-man immortal squad many commanders slap a Necron Lord in with a res-orb and warscythe to give the squad what essentially amounts to a 4+ FNP and two nasty can-opener swings. This makes each troop much tougher to grind through with bolters, lasguns, and other light anti-infantry weapons. However, this isn't always as mathematically sound as it might at first seem. The lord costs 75 points, and the regular models are pretty inexpensive. If you do the math, a squad of ten immortals without a res-lord supplies .09362 wounds per point if you account for their reanimation and the extra wound the lord supplies. Remove the lord, and the army is getting .09375 wounds per point, almost exactly the same value. Warrior squads benefit more: a lord takes the squad from .1154 wounds per point to .1254, a noteworthy improvement. The implications are pretty clear, though: if you want to field immortal squads you'd probably do better leaving the res-lords at home and getting an extra few squads. Of course, sometimes you might want one really tough squad to sit on an objective rather than several weaker ones. Season to taste.

Catacomb Command Barge - Your Necron Overlord's personal pimp-mobile. He can blast suckas in drive-by shootings thanks to the Catacomb's built in guns, or simply drive closer to hit them with his sword (or Warscythe as the case may be) and assign the wounds, but only if he rolls a 6. Good for adding mobility to an otherwise slow HQ choice, and combine with Trazyn the Infinite (who is scoring) for a trolltastic way to contest objectives. The 6th Ed FAQ has now turned this into a chariot as well, so the driver gets +1 to his save, assaults with D6 S6 attacks and classed as in assault. Want more? He's fearless too. 80points never tasted so good. Think about this. Position your barge overlord by the unit you want to kill. Move 12" over them, giving you 3 attacks that hit on 4's (Actually, they hit on a 3+ if the barge moved at combat speed), Shoot them with your cannon underneath (the S5 AP3 assault 2 Gauss Cannon is good, but the two automatic extra hits for every 6 rolled via the Tesla Cannon is kinda tough to turn down, too), assault with d6 HoW attacks, and then mindshackle a sergeant, nob, etc. into D3 extra hits, and then get your 4 attacks. In your one turn, this guy and his pimp-mobile have the potential to put out anywhere from 6 to 13 hits on a single unit all by itself. Wow.

Ghost Ark - Good for ferrying about your Overlord and his Court, or a unit of ten or fewer Necron Warriors, although it can still be purchased for units above the ten-model transport capacity. It can broadside two different targets with gauss flayers, and even repair Warriors from death. Well, till eventually dice gods laugh and make you roll a 1 which causes a glancing hit, but with 4HP this isn't really a big problem. Useful for drive-bys with shooty Royal Court units or Warrior squads, but unfortunately it can't carry any other unit types. A nice use for this Ark is to have it carry a unit with 9 Warriors and one Harbringer of the Storm: if you get close enough to one vehicle (12"), you can shoot with 18 Gauss and 4 electromagnetic shots. This tactic usually strips down a vehicle to a wreck (if not worse), but if it stands, you can also shoot it with the Gauss flayers mounted on the ark. Penetrating hits will blow up this thing up pretty easily because it's open-topped, but Quantum Shielding ensures that won't happen too often. Still, why aren't you taking a Night Scythe? Pair a twenty Warrior brick with one of these and a Necron res-orb lord and enjoy one of the hardiest tarpits in the game.

Night Scythe - Everything we've known up until now has changed. These are now the cheapest and second-best (The Vendetta is better, and almost as spammable) flyers in 6th edition. It's 100 points for something that's only hit on a 6, has 3 hull points, fires the equivalent of 4 autocannons, and can teleport troops to the floor whilst zooming. It's also available to warriors, immortals, deathmarks and lychguard. You can and should spam these guys until everyone gets reliable AA. Example: 3 riflemen dreads (one of the best light armour killers in the game) vs 1 night scythe. You glance/pen less than twice with 375 points worth of models and the scythe keeps on trucking. Now remember you can easily fit 6 of these in an army. Yeah, Necrons got good. Mount up Lychguard with Hyperphase Swords and Dispersion Shields, drop those suckers right into the enemy ranks, and then laugh as your opponent shoots them and they reflect the shots. Another trolltastic trick you can pull on the poor fucker you're up against is in a Relic mission. Get a squad of Warriors to grab the Relic, drive the scythe up to grab them, let the scythe crash into the enemy, and watch as the Warriors walk out of reserves onto your board edge with the relic and win the game. Since you only move 6", this is perfectly within the bounds of the rules and can be abused as much as you like. Take these if you like wizzing round the board making a nuisance of yourself.

Pro-tip/dick move: Set up terrain by the board edge specifically for the squad, so they can never be reached by enemy anythting.

Deathmarks - Deep-striking assassins with rapid-fire 24" sniper rifles. See an enemy unit you don't like? Send the Deathmarks after them and watch them wound on a 2+ against them (If you take one unit, then take 2 instead, since all Deathmark units can wound the marked unit. A relatively cheap way of dealing with problem units without getting your other units tied up after them). Can deep-strike immediately following an enemy DURING THEIR TURN. But are vulnerable to the enemy unit shooting before they get a chance [not a bad idea if someone deepstrikes a bunch of melta vets/termies behind your armour. Having five deathmarks with hunters from hyperspace appearing from nowhere will give the enemy something extra to think about; like 10 shots that wound on a 2+ and have rending, pinning and precision shots (Sniper USR)]. They're much better in 6e, but why aren't you taking more triarch stalkers?

Cheese combo explanation time: Deathmarks allow any members of a Royal Court that join the unit to use the "Hunters from Hyperspace" (HfH) rule (any enemy unit you mark with HfH gets wounded on a 2+. Additionally, if the marked enemy unit is joined by any IC's, they also get wounded on a 2+. It also works the other way around, with a HfH marked IC joining a squad conferring the 2+ wounding to it as well). The cheese comes when a Harbinger of Despair joins the unit of Deathmarks. The default weapon of Harbingers of Despair is the Abyssal Staff, a S8 AP1 flame template weapon that calculates against Leadership rather than Toughness for wounding. However, if the Harbinger is attached to the unit of Deathmarks, any unit marked by HfH it uses the Abyssal Staff against will instead be wounded on a 2+... there is not much that can stand up to a auto-hit AP1 weapon that wounds on a 2+. Also, the hfh rule says when a unit of deatmarks deep strikes onto the board it marks it's unit, and for the nightmare shroud the wording is instead of moving normally the unit is removed and deep strikes back onto the board- so deep strike, shoot,repeat

Worried about scattering on your deep strike? Drop the veil and put the unit in a Night Scythe. The turn you come in from reserves you can move 24" then disembark 6" and still shoot. You'll have your opponents cowering at the back of the board in future games.

Lychguards - Your terminator equivalents. Sort of. For the cost of a terminator, you get T5, reanimation protocols, but only a 3+ save. Their main basic weapon is a warscythe, which is the same awesome can-opener that you can give to your Lords and Overlords. However, the better bet is usually to exchange the warscythe for a Hyperphase Sword and Dispersion Shield. The shield gives you a 4++ invul, which adds to your survivability. However, although these guys can hit quite hard, they lack the resiliance of a 2+ save. The best way to run these is to use them as an escort for your Overlord (or better yet, Trazyn). Give your Lychguard Swords and Shields, and the Overlord a Warscythe. If you have the points, toss in a Necron Lord with another Warscythe and upgrade to taste. Make sure someone in the unit has a Resurrection Orb, since even a single four rolled and you'll make your points back and then some. While they're a semi-competent melee unit, they are very slow unless put in a transport so most units can simply walk away from them. the real use for these guys is simply bodyguard duty to a combat Overlord. The limitations and cost of Lychguard prevent them from being a truly competative choice, and it's best to leave the heavy-hitting to Wraiths... unless you're rolling Obyron. In that case, go nuts.

Triarch Praetorians - Another terribly overcosted close combat unit similar to Lychguards, their only real differences are -1 Attack, the addition of Fearless, and a change in wargear. They're also Jump Infantry, making them much more mobile than Lychguards. Their usual weapon is a Rod of Covenant, a S+1, AP2 unwieldy weapon with a S5 AP2 shooting attack with a 6" range, essentially giving them another attack before they charge. Their alternate weapons are voidblades and particle casters- This gives their shooting attack better range and strength in exchange for much worse AP, while their close combat weapons gain Rending and Entropic Strike. While this doesn't initially seem as good as outright ignoring armor altogether, they do get a bonus attack for having a pistol and close combat weapon, essentially trading quality for quantity. Even with this extra attack, they lose combat to Grey Hunters, Spiky Spess Mehrens and pretty much any other half-competent combat unit. One attack and no Invulnerable save on a combat unit makes them suck.

Alternate take: voidblade-equipped Praetorians are perfect vehicle-hunters, for they are fast and have entropic strike. While being not as deadly, as warscythe Lychguards, Praetorians actually CAN intercept even fast skimmers, lower their rear armor value to pathetic 2-5 and then rip them apart. Of course, a unit of Scarabs will do the same for half the points, but if you want to be a unique snowflake, go ahead and take these...

C'tan Shard - Yep, this is what happened to those 300+ point god-monsters from the old codex... Demoted to Elites and had their price cut to about 2/3 of what it once was. Their statline is worse, but they're still beastly, even more so than the Canoptek Spyders, and can take all sorts of nifty powers to screw with your opponent. Unfortunately, they provide a huge, very visible target to shoot at, and they compete with other Elite choices... and, like before, they're slow, only able to move 6" a turn. But hey, you can have *three* of the fuckers now. If that won't make your enemy shit bricks nothing will. Yes, they're expensive, but it's funny as hell to watch the look on your opponents face when you plop down three C'tan shards on the table that, once in close combat, will promptly tear his army a new asshole faster than you can say "shit on a stick!" They also get to pick two 'powers', from the old Nightbringer 'Gaze of Death' and the Dickceiver's 'Grand Illusion' to the new and badass 'Writhing Worldscape'. Not many know that the c'tan shards of the Nightbringer and Deceiver are actually fragments of Gork the Cunningly Brutal And Mork the Brutally cunning. Actually its actually the other way around. A description of the C'Tan powers follows below:

Gaze of Death: At the end of combat, the C'Tan produces a S3 Large Blast centered on itself that ignores armor. If any wounds are taken by the enemy, the C'Tan regenerates that many wounds up to its starting total. Helps the survivability of the model, but only if you can get into and win combat.

Grand Illusion: After Scout moves, you may redeploy D3 of your units, if you like that sort of thing.

Lord of Fire: Forces a D6 roll every time any flame/fire type weapons are fired within 12" of the C'Tan. On a 1, it explodes. Essentially causes your opponent to be at risk of a "Gets Hot" result every time flame weapons are used, only way better! It's the same as getting hot in the way that a flashlight is the same as a lascannon. The model that use the weapon is removed with no saves what so ever and without concern to its wounds. See this Eldar Avatar pointing its meltasword at you? Laugh really loud if he rolls a 1 and is wiped out of existence. Vehicles don't get their saves against getting hot but it's not so much of a difference. Useless if you're up against an army fielding plasma, lascannon, or any other type of heavy weapon.

Moulder of Worlds: S4 Assault Large Blast. Useful for horde armies, but sadly has no AP.

Sentient Singularity: Makes enemy vehicles within 6" count as being in dangerous terrain, and causes a mishap if deep striking units within 6" roll doubles of any kind. Situational, as it only applies if the C'Tan gets across the board to bog down enemy vehicles.

Swarm of Spirit Dust: Grants Stealth USR. Useful anywhere you're going to face a lot of high strength weapons but will have plenty of ruins available, as it will give 3+ cover. Can be a lifesaver in Apocalypse, where you'll face high AP weapons everywhere.

Time's Arrow: Similar to a Tesseract Labyrinth. Choose an enemy model in base contact with the shard at the beginning of combat. That model must pass an initiative test or die without any saves allowed. Take this if you want your C'Tan to go HQ/high-priority target hunting.

Transdimensional Thunderbolt: A lascannon shot, should you be lacking anti-armor. Also is an assault type weapon, so you can charge that Metal Box after shooting.

Writhing Worldscape: As covered elsewhere, this ability makes all difficult terrain dangerous for your enemy as long as the C'Tan is on the board. Best used in conjunction with Orikan to pull off a Tremor-Cron. Vicious against Eldar or other armies that depend on their mobility.

Flayed One Pack - These guys have the basically the same stats as a Necron Warrior. Same save, same Strength, toughness,initiative, and point cost. However, they have no guns. To compensate, they have 3 attacks in CC. Yeah. 3 S4, I2, no AP attacks. On top of that, they can't take transports, or Royal Court members, so they can't even get the benefit of a Resurrection Orb although you may attach them to HQ's such as a Destroyer Lord if you need one. These guys are almost universally regarded as the worst unit in the Necron Codex, and with good reason. And unlike some crappy units *coughMandrakescough*, they don't even have the benefit of cool models. $45 for five resin models that can't do shit in the game and look like they're covered in freakin' jack-o-lanterns? Pass. They really should be in troops, seeing as how there are so many better units for CQC in the Elites section, but thanks to Faggot Prime not giving the death company logic to the 'Crons assault dedicated crazies, they eat up a valuable slot. Honestly they're not quite as bad as Pyrovores, but they're the single worst unit in your codex, don't take them. They're a terrible, terrible unit.

Triarch Stalker - Basically the Necron Dreadnought. High Strength and good number of attacks in close combat, but unfortunately doesn't ignore armor. On the other hand, the Heat Ray acts as either a heavy flamer or a two-shot multi-melta, great for killing tanks and infantry alike. Additionally, scoring a hit on an enemy unit gives all your other units in your army a bonus to shoot at them (twin-linking). If you want to specialize in killing infantry, the Particle Shredder drops a nasty pie plate at a decent range. The Heat Ray is the best gun for taking out vehicles, but the Twin Linked Heavy Gauss Cannon has better range if you want to twin link your squads from the back of the board. Honestly these are what you should place in your elite slots, the others are rather situational and pricey, while a Stalker is always good.

Triarch Stalkers tag-team highly effectively with tesla immortals, as the rerolls they allow will occasionally end up as brand-new sixes. A twin-linked tesla carbine can actually expect four hits for every three shots fired, as impossible as that might sound. This combo constitutes an almost unparalleled anti-infantry battery: land your stalker's shot (or auto-hit with its flamethrower firing mode) and a single team of ten tesla immortals will expect better than eleven wounds against guardsmen or cultists, even while backpedaling to maintain their full 24" range. Hordearmies that need to get close have been known to spontaneously wet themselves at the first sight of this murderous pair.

Triarch Stalkers are also notorious for being massive firepower magnets, so don't ever hinge a strategy on yours surviving; if your opponent is any definition of the word "competent", then he will make it his business to see that the Stalker does not live to see the end of the game. For this reason, it's worthwhile to keep a Canoptek Spyder or two with fabricator claws close by in case it needs repairing.

Tomb Stalker (Forge World) - A T7, 4 wound Mostrous Creature with all sorts of neat special rules. Poison and Fleshbane wound it on a 6 instead, so take 3 when fighting Dark Eldar. It can deepstrike or outflank with acute senses, so you have a few different ways to get it where in needs to go. It's got a good number of attacks and is as resiliant as you can expect a Necron monstrous creature to be. Now that it's been moved from Heavy Support to Elite, it's definitely worth considering. The only drawback is that it's pretty expensive, weighing in at at 220 points after you purchase It Will Not Die, which you should always do. Another thing to note is that it comes in squads of one it can almost always make use of the rampage USR

Canoptek Wraiths - Jump Infantry with Rending attacks and a 3+ Invuln that ignore difficult and dangerous terrain, and surprisingly good in assault thanks to an ability that can reduce enemy Initiative to 1. They can also take particle casters (essentially S6 AP5 pistols) or transdimensional beamers, which are one of several "Strength test or instantly die" weapons that the Necrons seem so fond of now. Unfortunately, beamers are heavy weapons, which aren't good on an assault unit like Wraiths - you're better served by the particle casters or the whip coils. At least they have multiple Wounds now, which means that entire squads won't die to light bolter fire in one turn. Wraiths are great at protecting valuable units (e.g. Triarch Stalkers) from an assault. Their only downside being, as one of the 'Canoptek' family of machines, they don't have the Reanimation Protocols special rule, so are unable to come back to life. Best not to take them as single models; for what they lack in (relative) longevity, they more than make up for in mobility.

Canoptek Scarabs - One of the few units with the "Entropic Strike" rule, meaning that it can make your enemy lose their goddamn armor save if they ever fail a save against them. Unfortunately, Scarabs have unimpressive stats (WS2, S3) and their weapons don't ignore armor saves- not to mention that most units you'll face only have 1 Wound, so if they've lost their armor save they're dead anyway. Flamers will also ruin their day, ignoring their armor and doing double damage against them, and S6 weapons will outright kill them. However, they are wonderful tarpits, with 3 Wounds per base and 4 attacks each, and they're absurdly overpowered when used against vehicles, especially Land Raiders- watch your local Marine player cry as their almighty AV14 drops to 13, then 12... The amazing thing: all these AV decreases happen simultaneously before rolling to pen. Once it drops below AV10, your absurd amount of S3 attacks are going to start adding up in glances and pens. And when it comes to regular AV10-rear tank... well even one scarab base has a good chance to wreck, say, a Leman Russ IN ONE CHARGE, and two would blast it to pieces almost guaranteed. Once your mech-happy opponent realizes this, he will turn all his guns to shoot down your cheap and expendable bugs, ignoring everything else. Using them on titans was hilarious, but NOT ANYMORE! Due to the new Apoc rules, Super-Heavies are now immune to anything that can lower their armour value! See Canoptek Spyder for how the FAQ nerfed the Scarab Conga line (not that anyone is really crying about that one...well except power gamers).

Tomb Blades - Jetbikes with twin-linked guns, capable of being upgraded with a 3+ armor save, BS5, and/or +1 to cover saves. Surprisingly, a full squad can fit in a Night Scythe, if you want to stick them in a transport for some reason (though they cannot buy one for themselves). Great for zipping around the battlefield, harassing any stray infantry units, and particle beamers could even be used to take on light vehicles as well. Like most Necron units, it seems to be purpose made to make Tyranids and Chaos Daemons cry. What's that? Your hive guard's AP can't touch my jetbike's armor save and your Zoanthropes can't shoot far enough to hit them? Hahahahaha sucks to be you. Unfortunately, if you want to buy the 3+ armour saves and Stealth and other goodies, you're running fairly expensive models. And on top of that, while these guys are fast and moderately survivable, they have a hard time killing anything. The Particle Beamer is only an AP5 small blast, and if you don't take that then you get one of the same guns that Immortals get. Also, there's no way to give them a Resurrection Orb without slowing them down, not unless you put them with a Destroyer Lord but then you can't Turbo Boost, and Lord could be focus-fired due to not having jink save. Trying to kit Tomb Blades out to actually kill something is a trap, they just can't quite do it. If you must take them, take a cheap squad, keep them out of sight to the point where your opponent forgets you have them, then turbo-boost across the board at the end of the game and contest an objective. Another idea is to think of them as expensive immortals with a rocket up their backsides. Twin-linked gauss blasters with BS5 (+5 PPM) will hardly ever miss, so point them at those Tyranid warriors before they can hurt you too much (Note that they won't kill a whole unit in a single turn, they're best used for making your enemy think twice about assaulting you). Take 5 of them, add BS5, and you're looking at 125pts for a squad of irritating little buggers.

Necron Destroyers - They're not jetbikes anymore, they've been reduced to Jump Infantry... However, they have a few new tricks to make up for this. They have Preferred Enemy (Everything!), meaning that they reroll all to-hit & to-wound rolls of 1 in both shooting and assault, and up to three of them (out of a maximum squad size of 5) can be upgraded to Heavy Destroyers (essentially lascannons on a jump infantry model). Regular Destroyers make Marines cry with their S5 AP3 Assault 2 guns, while Heavy Destroyers will blast tanks and Termies to shreds. Expect them to attract lots of fire in return, however, and don't let them end up in close combat, where they will die horribly like almost any other ranged 'Cron in CC. Luckily, your opponent's CC guys should rarely ever into contact with your Destroyers, considering how godly they are at move-shoot tactics. Like crisis suits, they are masterful at surprising enemy formations and then blowing the crap out of them. Unlike Crisis Suits, they can't jump back into cover and are fairly fragile. So they appear, shout BOO!, kill a handful of Marines, and then lead the enemy assault units on a merry chase as any competent Armchair General will continue to move them back equal to their enemies movement, keeping them at all times at the maximum 24", thus never being assaulted. Great when used to probe and harry enemy flanks. Terminators will fume and try to catch up, but a hop-skip-and-a-jump, and you're over their heads if you time their movement perfectly and the dice don't kick your ass with a 6" assault. Always take Heavy Destroyers. Regular Destroyers are best used in conjunction with your Infantry Phalanx (You... You are running multiple squads of max-strength Immortals with these guys, right? If you're using flyers as your bulk, using Destroyers is superfluous) to provide Hardpoint elimination, rapid-response teams, and Hero-hammer harassers. Tag team them with some Heavy Gauss Cannon wielding Stalkers for a combo that will make your opponent wet themselves.

Canoptek Acanthrites (Forge World) - Beefier Wraiths that specialize in busting vehicles and heavy infantry. T5, W3, and 3+. The have Stealth and carry Voidblades and S6 Assault 1 Meltas. Unfortunately, they don't have the invulnerable save that their Wraith counterparts have, instead relying on 3+ armor and Stealth. Their best place is in a list whose main troops consist of Tesla-Immortals to provide some much-needed anti-tank. Throw in a Destroyer Lord and eat Land Raiders for breakfast. Also, if you're thinking of running a Wraith-Wing army, consider an Acanthrite-Wing instead, since you can take these things in units of 9.

Canoptek Tomb Sentinel (Forge World) - A new Tomb Stalker variant that focuses on ranged combat rather than close combat. It uses an Exile cannon which works kinda like a Transdimensional Beamer, but bigger. It's neat, but it has fewer CC attacks than the Tomb Stalker for the same price, carries a gimmicky gun that will do nothing more often than not, and eats up a valuable Fast Attack slot instead of a "meh" Elite Slot. It still has Rampage and the Stalker's Deep Strike/Outflank option though, it will eat tarpits and light infantry blobs for breakfast and Its weapon auto-penetrates any vehicle touched by the template. Couple this last one with S10 from Smash and in a pinch it can also eat a tank or two to vary its usual diet of infantry.

Doomsday Ark - Basically a Ghost Ark with the transport capacity removed and replaced by a big gun instead. Unfortunately, has the same problem that Heavy Destroyers had in the previous codex; it's a huge gun mounted on a fragile platform. AV 11 and Open Topped do not make a good combination for an expensive model like this. Thankfully, the Doomsday Cannon has a long range in the stationary mode, so keep it in the back of your army where it can spit S9 AP1 pie plates at anything that moves. Tip: Always shoot these first (unless you have a stalker to make it twin linked) and ALWAYS target the most suitable infantry squad (i.e: First you blast MEQs, then TEQs and work your way up from there). A full-power shot has a very high chance of completely wiping a Tactical Marine squad off the table so if you use these wisely, you can cause your opponent to have an epileptic fit by Turn 2. While it can certainly dish out the hurt, it can't take it. (Actually quantum shielding boosts it's AV up to 13 until it gets penetrated so it's still pretty tough - though being stationary means it never gets a jink save.) Armies that have problems with strength based instant-death weapons with high AP values and templates (tyranids), are known to pretty much spontaneously explode at the mere sight of this thing. (NOTE: after their recent downgrade, Tyranids explode more or less on their own)

Pro-tip: use in conjunction with a pair of Triarch Stalkers to grant your only-one-shot-a-turn mega gun some twinlinking.

Annihilation Barge - A Catacomb Command Barge, with the Overlord's pimp chair replaced with a big gun (seem familiar?). This is your bread and butter of most lists - it's just too good to not consider. It's AV13 on front and sides thanks to quantum shielding, has living metal and only costs 90 points. Oh, did I mention that it has a strength 7 weapon that fires 4 times but hits an average of 5.5 times (plus its ability to arc off and hit other units D6 times at strength 5), then for desserts either carries a strength 6 tesla cannon or a gauss cannon for killing marines, daemons and tyranids? If you're planning on playing in a tournament, this is what you want in your Heavy Support slots. Yes, all of them.

Monolith - It's still a big floating pyramid that blasts gauss death from every orifice. No longer as ungodly invincible as it was previously - Living Metal only affects Crew Stunned/Shaken results now, so meltas and lance weapons work on it; still sucks to be an Ork, Chaos Daemon, or Tyranid (But then again, most of Matt Ward's armies seem to spite armies that use monstrous creatures over vehicles at every turn) but received a hefty price drop and kept its firepower (debatable). Like before, it can teleport Necron units through its Eternity Gate, or suck enemies through it without even giving them an invulnerable save (perfect for killing those annoying Thunderwolves or Nob Bikers). It can even Deep Strike, which might be smart considering how slow it is otherwise.

Pro-tip: Just Take two Annihilation Barges. Monoliths have no jink, they scatter/mishap easily, don't ignore lance/melta, Ordnance makes everything else snap shoot, they only move 6" so are easily blocked and are huge so shooting at them is easy. If you absolutely MUST have a Monolith take Nemesor Zahndrekh and a Ghost Ark. Put the Ark in front of the monolith to block LOS, give the monolith stealth for a 4+ cover save from Zahndrekh's ability. The Ark will get a 5+ jink as well. Best done with multiple Ghost Arks.

The Monolith can deep strike, use the dimensional corridor,(which can get fucking interesting if you recall that any non-vehicle model can use it, including monstrous creatures...) fire it's whip and it's flux arc (although only snap shoot these). In the same turn it lands in the enemies face. This isn't bad for 200 points(until you mishap) BUT the annihilation barges are probably still going to be more cost effective.

Conclusion: Worst Necon HS and probably one of, if not THE, worst Heavy Support in all of Warhammer now. what fucking drugs are you on? This may not be the best, but it's still viable, just a hell of a lot more situational in its use. You want worst HS choice of all? Go look in tyranids or sisters of battle chump. Calm down, buddy. It's not great, but you don't need to gett all angry about some game. This thing is amazing until you hit shit what uses high strength weaponry to intercept. Have you ever seen what happens when you start taking pot shots with a transdimensional thunderbolt C'Tan at a imperial guard tank parking lot? I thought not.

Don't forget, this thing is a monster for blocking TLOS. Tactics using allies with barrage weapons do exist for this model.

Not mentioned above, the monolith isn't restricted with normal firing limitations of one target per shooting phase. With all 4 gauss flux arcs, dimensional corridor, and the particle whip, the monolith can technically fire at 6 different targets in a single shooting phase. Although independently, none of the shooting attacks are particularly notable, it is an impressive number of targets one can engage at once. It is notable that due to the fire arcs of the various weapons, the monolith is very unlikely to be able to fire all weapons at a single target.

If you still feel like taking it, take a Spyder too, and kit it out with its gloom prism and fabricator claw array. Hide it behind the monolith, and when Abbadon gets too big for his boots and comes to smack you up a bit, jump out of the portal, shout 'BOO!' and make him run away again. Take wraiths with whip coils for added pain. The gloom prism will provide you with some very useful psyker defense (The only one you're going to get as Necrons, mind) for your flying fortress, and that claw can repair you if your opponent tries to get rid of your guns

Doom Scythe - Another repurposed transport vehicle with the transport capacity replaced with a massive gun- Just like the Doomsday Ark and Annihilation Barge (and the Vindicator, the Hammerhead and the Fire Prism...). Ridiculously fast, and carries a powerful, long-range Death Ray (a S10 Ap1 line maker that vaporizes anything within 3D6" Fuck off. 12" then 3D6". Come in 24" second turn and draw death lines 36" to a potential 54" away from your table edge. Considering that a standard table is 48 inches wide, not too shabby). And with the new flyer rules, this thing is INCREDIBLE: 6 to hit it, and has a cover save. Take two to make your opponent have a fit over having his expensive tanks explode at the same time. Take three, back them up with Night Scythes to simply throw all your enemy ground based anti-air out of table on turn two, and watch him weeping. However, although the Death Ray is powerful, remember that it doesn't ignore cover, so think twice about loading up on Doom Scythes if you're going to be facing armies that have a lot of skimmers. They always make their jink saves exactly when you don't want them to. Not to mention the Chaos and DE vehicles that have invulnerable saves anyway. If you're taking a Doom Scythe purely for anti-tank, consider this: A 5-man Warrior Squad, a Harbinger of the Storm Cryptek and a Night Scythe costs a mere 35 points more. This gives you a flier as well as a scoring unit that you can drop next to any tank in the game and reliably get 4 to 5 glancing hits regardless of Armor Value.

Alternitivley, Zoom around drawing lines through multi-wound, high armoursave and with a toughness of five or less(Palidins, Tyranid warriors). Also, due to the unique way that wounds are allocated in 6ed, feel free to draw your line through heavy and special weapons, characters and basicly any other dick-head specialist that you don't want in that squad (Characters and IC still get their Look Out Sir, but on the off chance they roll a one, you can insta-kill there HQ's).

Pro-tip: make sure to blast the Hydra and any other AA units off of table the turn your Scythe arrives.

Canoptek Spyders - Cheap as dirt Monstrous Creatures that are T6 W3 3+, and can be taken in units of three. How cheap? Well, some armies have Terminators with a higher base cost. Yes, really. They can even create Scarabs, and can take some nasty wargear as well. Fabricator claws can repair Necron vehicles, and Gloom Prisms add +2 to Deny the Witch rolls for the Spyder and any unit within 3". Not a great option, given how slow big momma is, but it's your only anti-psyker option and could find a niche use depending on your local meta. Don't get gloomy over the prism though, since you can take three Spyders for one Heavy Support slot they are worth considering despite their stiff competition for this category. Three monstrous creatures as a single unit will likely not fail to draw attention, especially as they keep your Ghost Arks repaired and shut down incoming powers. Just to put the icing on this arachno-cake, they can each take a twin-linked particle beamer to give them something to do while marching ahead. So the 5th edition update gave them the opposite treatment of the Carnifex: it took a once somewhat above mediocre unit and made it into a cost effective rape machine, while the Carnifex was a godly unit that was slightly buffed and nerfed at the same time and then made a load more expensive. 6th Edition gave them a bunch of extra goodies in the new rules for Monstrous Creatures as well, and those buffs mostly hold in 7th. They're tough as balls to kill and dish out a good number of Smash attacks single smash attack. Even with 7th edition's downgrade, they're still an excellent unit that can fill multiple roles. Unfortunately, they share the FoC slot with Annihilation Barges and Doom Scythes, which is why you never really see them.

FAQ update: before the nerf, the Scarab conga line was the most popular power gamer strategy being used for the Crons. Literally, a Necron player could keep adding Scarab bases to old and newly created ones so long as they were in unit coherency. This meant they could form a line straight into the deployment zone of the opponent and gain a 1st turn assault. This was incredibly effective against opponents dumb enough to or who had to place vehicles close to the edge of their deployment zone (Vindicators come to mind). But it also worked against blobby units, so it was called cheese. Fortunately the FAQ "corrected" the Spyder and says that new Scarab bases can only be placed in unit coherency with bases not created that turn. Conga line = nerfed. Nonetheless, guaranteed 9 new bases every turn is nothing to scoff at, as it allows you to go above and beyond the original size and limitations of your hopefully already massive swarms. The only downside is your Scarabs are going to be moving up to 12" ignoring difficult while your Spyders are limited to 6", with a range of 6" on the Scarab Hive ability. Also, each time you roll a one to add a new Scarab base the Spyder takes a wound with no armour or cover saves, so it could easily end up committing suicide if you use this too much.

Sentry Pylon (Forge World) - Fully autonomous artillery with three options: a 2 shot S10 AP1 melta pieplate, A death ray like the one on the doomscythe but that hits all models under the line TWICE and a 2 shot lascannon with Skyfire, Interceptor and 120" of range and Gauss for those pesky AV 16 models. With 3 wounds, 3+ armor and T7 it's also pretty tough. These can be taken in units of three, which will get expensive but you get quite a bit of firepower for the points. A trio of Pylons with Gauss Exterminators will make short work of enemy Helldrakes, will leave you less reliant on your own fliers for anti-air and can double as anti-tank artillery, but has only two shots per turn and still has problems with cover. On the other hand, the Focused Death Ray will deny huge amounts of territory to your enemy's units but actually hitting lots of models is more difficult than it sounds and does not discern between friend and foe, and the Heat Cannon is immensely powerful but relatively short ranged. You can give them either It Will Not Die to make them irritatingly resilient or Deep Strike for surprise buttsex (combine with Heat Cannon for pseudo-Mawloc/Breaching Drill shenanigans).

Tesseract Ark (Forge World) - A AV12 (AV 14 bitches! Quantum Shielding.) barge with a really cool piece of swag. 5++, all units trying to assault or ram must take a dangerous terrain test and you can also shoot with it, with three different modes: Plasma Destroyer with a fancy name to kindly tell Gay Knights and TEQs to go fuck themselves, Fleshbane AP3 flamer to evaporate Marines and any fool that gets too close and an underpowered S5 AP4 mini death-ray that that slows you down (And is also Armorbane, which might be good for killing lines of light vehicles). Also, two Gauss or Tesla Cannons or Particle Beamers for dakka overload. 50 points more than a Monolith, and oh so worth it. Just be careful with your back armor. Once your Quantum Shielding goes away, this thing is pretty much dead.

Night Shroud Bomber (Forge World) - AV12 all round, 4HP, 5 bombs, S10, AP1, Large Blast, Blind, Pinning. Also a Tesla Destructor. 225pts. Seems good? Seems good. People scream op at the bombs, but really they'll likely be about as effective as the death ray. What you're really paying for is the extra durability.

Keeps your objective camping Warrior squad safe from those pesky AP4 and under weapons. Necrons are a shooty army, and unless you're up against Tau or Guard, you're going to be the one playing the defense. Upgrade-wise, your best bet is the Comms Relay, since this army typically relies on it's own fliers for anti-air, and the reserve modifiers help with getting said fliers onto the table.

Imperial Bastion

Can be decent depending on the matchup, although if you're embarked in the building then you aren't practising the time honored strategy of "Move, Shoot, Repeat". Note that this structure is large enough to get a cover save for your monolith.

Skyshield Landing Pad

Can be used for some interesting tricks, particularly involving the 4++ that it confers when it's folded up. Set it up in the center of your deployment zone, plop 3 Monoliths on top of it, and drink your opponent's tears. If you really want to make sure your opponent never wants to play you again, combine this with Toholk the Blinded from the Dark Harvest army list, that way your AV14, 4HP, 4++ vehicles will also have It Will Not Die.

Never. Ever. Field A Monolith with this set up. Let alone three. They are terri-bad, especially if you're just planning on having them sit there. Three Doomsday Arks on top of the Pad will be cheaper and give you more reach and fire power any day.

Fortress of Redemption

No. You're not Imperial Guard. Your troops are not squishy enough to need to hide in this thing, and your guns have such short range that you can't afford to just sit in one spot the whole game. Besides, if you want to spend this many points on a fortification, just go the extra mile and get the Tomb Citadel.

Tomb Citadel (Forge World) - Broken. Stupidly so. Two AV14 Structures, killed on a 5+ with a penetrating hit. One has Eternity Gate and Scarab Hive, the other gives everything (including the structures and emplacements) on it a 3++ invulnerable (does not specify Necron Units), and all Necron units on it a re-roll to RP of 1. This is ridiculous considering it is nearly 2x2 foot, so you can now reliably bunker down and NEVER DIE. It can have emplacements (up to 2) with Skyfire and Interceptor - Twin-linked Tesla Destructor for 65pts, or Gauss Exterminator for 100pts. The Fortification without the upgrades (and it can have Comms Relay for 20pts) is 300 POINTS. Give your Warriors a Lord with Resurrection Orb, stick them on here, and THEY WILL NEVER DIE.

Pylon - A Super Heavy artillery piece. Great for putting holes in other Super Heavies with 3 S D AP2 shots that have incredibly long range (LOL WHAT BANEBLADES!?). Three of these can pretty much wreck a mech army in one turn. Now you see a healthy Leman Russ company, now you see nine smoking wrecks. They are unparalleled tank destroyers. And that's just the icing on the cake! With Armor 14 and the living metal rule, they are a bitch to kill. Their teleportation lets them be where they need to in a snap, their special effects are just sweet, and they allow you to use some really overpowered formations (5+ invulnerable saves for your whole army... your enemies can weep now.) And if anything gets close? No problem, it has a flux arc mode that fires 2D6 S6 AP3 shots. All that with Skyfire with interceptor, too.

Warzone: Damnos ass raped the pylon, adding 95 points to the cost and removing the interceptor special rule, meaning it's now just extremely overqualified flak-cannon, though you can use the alternative (read: better) rules from IAA:third edition, unless you're playing Damnos campaign (why would you?).

Obelisk - 335 points for BS4, Armor 12(14 with quantum shielding) all-around and 6 hull points on a Super-heavy Skimmer, alongside Deep Strike and Living Metal. Its main guns are four Tesla spheres who shoot at S7 AP- Assault 5 Tesla(duh). But then you remember, wasn't this just described as an anti-air vehicle? It doesn't even have Skyfire! But then you read its special rule Gravity Pulse: at the start of EVERY (this includes your opponents'!) shooting phase ALL enemy Flyers and Skimmers within 24" take a S8 AP4 hit. This effectively means that you have a 48" circle where your opponent will not lightly put one of his Flyers inside of. And this is not a shooting attack, so feel free to unload the Tesla spheres into nearby enemies. But wait, there's more! The Obelisk also has the rule Sleeping Sentry: allowing it to start the gmae in a "powered down" state where it cannot move or shoot (including Gravity Pulse), but it has a notable 3+ armor save. You can power up at the start of your Movement phase, immediately allowing for movement and shooting. This allows you to keep your relatively soft Obelisk safe while the enemy draws close. If you have the points to spare you can use them to maximum overtroll in concert with Nemesor Zahndrekh to plonk several Obelisks into enemy territory when their flyers hit the board.

Tesseract Vault and the Transcendent C'tan - They are more or less the same unit, yet come in two flavors: Super-heavy Skimmer and Gargantuan Creature, costing 315 and 420 respectively. The main difference is a BS5 (worse than GC, but this only means you don't get a reroll) 9 HP 14 all-round coat for your otherwise face-eating Transcendent C'tan (WS6 S9 A8 I5 will eat everything in CC, while a T9, W6 and 4++ will keep you save for some time, though be wary around the Dark Eldar and Tyranids with their manifold poison weapons poison wounds on a 6+ against GC's. While they both appear cheap they become FAR more expensive with the mandatory powers and Ascendant Powers (weapons) that will cost you AT LEAST 225 additional points. But oh boy can it kick ass, its powers make it far more awesome (note that the Vault cannot take any of these):

Seismic Shockwave makes its Stomp attack use the Large blast template. Has its uses.

Transliminal Stride is where it's at. Despite being more expensive than the other two COMBINED, it grants the C'tan a special move: 18" in a straight line, ignoring everything in its way. Oh, and everything passed through gets the D. That is, a SD AP- hit. Sure, it prevents the C'tan from charging in the same turn, but that more than makes up for being able to tell your opponent that two of his Titans just got a D hit.

Next, your li'l suneater has to take at least two of the following shooting attacks:

Wave of Withering is your SD attack: while it's stuck to a Hellstorm template it is your primary anti-Superheavy weapon.

Antimatter Metior is your table-clearing Apocalyptic Mega-Blast attack: S10/8/6 AP1/3/5 can clear a good part of the table with a well-placed shot. This attack also has a nice range.

Seismic Assault is your unit-ender: not many things can hope to stand against S8 AP3 Heavy 6D6, allowing for a maximum of 36 hits. That is six times six. And that is dakka.

Because the C'tan is faster than the Vault, it is advised that you equip the C'tan with the short ranged weapons (Cosmic Fire, Wave of Withering) and Transliminal Stride while keeping the artillery (Sky of Falling Stars, Antimatter Meteor) on the Vault. And do be aware that when they are taken out they violently explode, either with a Titanic Explosion or a 4D6 S10 AP2 hit. You can exploit this by placing your C'tan deep within enemy lines when he goes off.

In Imperial armor 12 is army list to represent "the accursed and bloody Maynarkh Dynasty". It's specifically said to be mainly a flavor change to let you field an Oldcrons-style murderous legion of insane robot-monsters. It's a bit like a prototype supplement, and like other supplements the changes are not significant enough to warrant a separate tactica page, but it would be rude to let them out. Luckily, this FW supplement doesn't appear to have anything blatantly overpowered, with each new unit having a suitable points increase or weakness that can be executed. Anyone claiming you won "because you used FW" is just a sore loser.

HQ: Overlords and Lords cause Fear and are ready to go crazy at any moment. Every time they or their unit wipe out an enemy in combat or fail a morale check roll a die: 2-5 nothing happens; 1 they either make d3 attacks against their unit or lose a wound with no saves allowed; 6 they get Fearless and Rage for the rest of the game but give points to your opponent like they were destroyed. Also for 5 points they can buy Flensing Scarabs, a nifty item that lets them re-roll all failed wounds in the first round of each combat they fight. Crypteks and Destroyer Lords are identical to vanilla Necrons.

Special Characters: You can't use normal necron characters but don't worry, you've got two of your own. Kutlakh the World-Killer is the obligatory 200+ points named beatstick; he's got one more WS and attacks than a vanilla Lord, he's loaded for bear with an AP2 Instant Death sword, he gives his squad Fearless, Fear, Relentless and Crusader and in challenges his opponent's WS is reduced by the difference between his Leadership+d6 and Kutlakh's. Toholk the Blind is a beefed up Cryptek like Szeras and Orikan, and like them belongs to the category of cheap support characters; he gives d3 Vehicles It Will Not Die! for the entire game, so he should be considered an auto-include in mech-heavy armies, plus he's got all the cool toys an Harbinger of Eternity can have and he gives his whole squad Night Vision and Immunity to Blind.

Troops: Guess what? Flayed Ones as troops! Now your dream of having an assaut-oriented Necron army can finally become reality! Unfortunately they come in 10-20 units so willing or not you'll have to bring lots of them. Maynarkh Warriors also have a minimum unit size of 10, to go with the "horde of zombie robots" concept. Maynarkh Immortals are rare and act more like enforcers and taskmasters, so they don't count toward your minimum troops requirement. All three can buy Flensing Scarabs at 10 points per squad.

Dedicated Transports: Exactly as in Codex: Necrons.

Elite: Charnel Lychguards cost 5 points more for Rage and Fear, and you can only have one squad for every Overlord. Also they can take the flensing scarabs. For the rest you can use all other necron elites (Except C'tan Shards: no pokégods for you) plus the excellent Tomb Stalker to troll Dark Eldars and counter the opponent's own Monstrous Creatures.

Fast Attack: Regular Scarabs may be upgraded to Charnel Scarabs at 5 points each, gaining +1WS and trading Entropic Strike for Shred and Rending. This turns your terribleawesome GODLIKE vehicle-chewers into surprisingly effective infantry-eaters. You can field Acanthrites and Tomb Sentinels in addition to normal Necron goodies. (Scarabs only suck if your opponent is spamming templates at you. Seriously though, they're beasts, why are you not moving them through cover?)

Heavy Support: no change except for three new toys: the Tesseract Ark, Nightshroud Bomber and Sentry Pylons.

Allies: Allies of Convenience with regular Necrons, Desperate Allies with Marines, Guard, Orks and Chaos Marines and "Come the Apocalypse" with everyone else.

Warlord Traits:

Predictive Strategy - You may add or subtract 1 to any Reserve roll while the Warlord is alive. As if the Necrons needed any more incentives to play Flying Circus.

Dust and Ashes - If your Warlord survives you gain an extra victory point. Just hope he doesn't tard out on the last turn.

Blood of Ancients - The Warlord must always issue and accept challenges, but for every IC he kills you gain an additional Victory Point. Necrons HQs aren't usually scared of challenges, so go forth and slap bitches.

Unbending Will - The Warlord and his unit may reroll for Reanimation Protocols while within 3" of an objective. Like a warriors blob camping on an objective wasn't a pain in the ass already.

Fire of The Heavens - Every turn, a Vehicle or Artillery unit get +1 Strenght on one of its weapons. use on a Tesseract Ark and watch your opponent's face when you tell him his full unit of Paladins doesn't exist anymore.

Death Incarnate - Crusader for the Warlord and his unit. If you're trying to play necrons as an assault army every little bit helps. Necrons sweeping units!? What is this madness!?

Tactics: Necrons gonna be necrons. In the book the Manyarkh Dynasty's strategy is described as super-aggressive short range engagements, with hordes of cannon fodder to keep the enemy busy, close air support to bomb everything back to the stone age Precambrian era and Stalkers/Sentinels and wing of Acanthrites to break strongpoints or outflank. So, your average necron list before flyer spam became the flavor of the month.

Alright, seriously, the two(three if you count the warlord traits) highlights of this list are the higher close combat proficiency and the new toys. Flayed Ones are by no means an exceptional unit but al least now they don't clog up an elite slot. Deep Strike and Infiltration don't work as well as in the codex list due to bigger squads, but you can still use them as choppy footslogging meatshields to complement or substitute the shooty footslogging meatshielding of Warriors. If you really want them to get some shit done, Reverend GreenKutlakh, with the Obsidiax, in the Flayed One blob can make them order of magnitude scarier, and probably will quite like the large amount of regenerating ablative wounds and supplementary attacks. The change to Overlords and Lords is mainly a fluffy one: Fear is relatively useless as always and most necrons units have low chances to fail a morale check or completely wipe out an enemy unit in assault, and 2/3 of the times it happens it does nothing. Charnel Lychguards are a nice upgrade, and most of the times you would have taken only one unit anyway. Flensing Scarabs are extremely cheap (half a point per model on a 20 strong squad) and will assure the users will inflict the maximum amount of wounds in their first fight; the obvious clients are Flayed Ones and Lychguards, but Immortals could use a little anti-assault deterrent. Or you could just ignore all of the above and go for the shiny new Forgeworld goodies, analyzed more in detail overhead. But since you could very well use them with a normal necron list, the only reason to play Dark Harvest sans Close Combat is the Warlord Traits, and seriously if you like random charts so much there's this new codex here...

Dry Brushing - The only technique you will need to use to paint any sized Necron force.

Dip - An alternative to Dry Brushing. Spray everything chrome or a shiny metallic color. Then dip all the models in a brown wash. Blam, done. After assembling, you have any sized Necron force done in 30 minutes. Put some green as an added bonus.

Alternatively - The fact that Necrons are so commonly speed painted does not mean that's your only choice. Don't feel you have to paint them up as T-100 exoskeletons to be doing it right.

The best and easiest way to start is the Battleforce + Catacomb Command Barge combo. This nets you everything you need to play a decent match at 705-955 points depending on how you set up your vehicles and Overlord. The trick is that the Command Barge comes with what amounts to a free HQ character in the included Overlord. That Command Barge alone is one of the best deals out there in the entire Games Workshop lineup. Otheriwse you can just start like with any other army; an HQ, 2 Troops choices, 1 vehicle, and a Fast Attack / Elite choice.

HQ Choices:
Your best bet will be a generic Overlord. One of these guys decked out in the right wargear, riding a Command Barge, is probably the most popular HQ selection. Anrakyr, Trazyn, and Nemesor Zahndrekh are all somewhat decent HQ choices, given the right circumstances. Vargard Obyron, Szeras, Orikan, and the Destroyer Lord, not so much (they're more along the lines of support HQ choices).

Keep in mind that Necron HQ and the Royal Courts they can unlock are incredibly good at buffing your army. Whether it be Anrakyr's Pyrrhian Eternals, Szeras' upgrades, or the Overlord's Phaeron ability, each HQ is tailored for both specific tactics or general enhancement. (Don't start out with Imotekh though. Sure deep striking Flayed Ones may seem nice, but the Stormlord's abilities are grossly overrated.)

Troop Choices: Warriors are dependable and you can have many of them. Problem is, your opponent will most likely charge them as she/he/it will know Warriors die when assaulted. Many will argue that Warriors is the way to go, while others praise the Immortals more. Truth of the matter is, you need both. Your Warriors should be your objective holders or mid line support, while your Immortals should be at the forefront capturing contested objectives or taking the fight to the enemy (better done with Anrakyr's upgrades.) Use both Troops choices.

Elite choices: Most of these are on the lower end of mediocre, but there are a few exceptions and niche uses for them. Deathmarks are your best bet to start out with, since they're good at taking out MCs/heavy infantry that the rest of our army has problems with. Pair with Harbingers of Despair for silly amounts of firepower. Lychguard are alright in larger games when you have a combat Overlord who needs an escort (Trazyn, Obyron, and Anrakyr are good for this)
and as tempting as the Warscythes are, the Sword and Shield is usually the better call. Triarch Praetorians are terrible, and you should avoid them. Ditto for Flayed Ones. C'tan also suck, but are fluffy and can be entertaining if you want to try out a Tremor-Crons list. The Triarch Stalker is a model you'll either love or hate. It's twin-linking is useful, but only you can decide if it's worth the points.

Heavy Support choices: Monolith is tough, but not recommended for low point games. They cost a lot but can do a lot, too. If you absolutely need it, take only 1 (for now). Spyders are decent in close combat, but they're best served in a support capacity. Good for both repairing your vehicles and spawning more Scarabs. Doomsday Arks are powerful, but fickle. Doom Scythes have the strongest weapon the Necrons have at their disposal, but are also the biggest target. If you absolutely have to take it, take two. The Annihilation Barge is one of the best units in the codex. Spam them, if you can.

Fast attack choices: Arguably the best section in the codex. Scarabs are excellent at destroying vehicles, and they will come for free basically with your Warriors (if you have Spyders in your army, go crazy with Scarabs). Wraiths are realistically the best combat unit Necrons have. Take them if you have the points, or if you want a threatening counter-assault or deep-strike melee threat. Tomb Blades and Destroyers are great, too (sorry Tomb Blades, it's just too expensive to make you good). It's hard to know what to take and what to leave from this section. Unless you're going with scarabs and spiders spyders, pick your Fast Attack slots to cover and complement your other choices, not the other way around.

Transports: Catacomb Command Barge is considered one of the greatest vehicles in the game. No exaggeration. If you've got an HQ with a Warscythe, get him on one of these. You will not be sorry. Ghost Arks are great, but are for Warriors and Characters only. Keep in mind they can only fit 10 models inside, too. They're nice support if you're fielding lots of Warriors. The Night Scythe is for everything else. Move them flat out 3 feet into the enemy and unleash 10 Immortals with a barrage of fire.

UPDATE: The new Necron Battleforce is now available. It brings 5 Immortals or Deathmarks, 20 Warriors, 5 Canoptek Scarab bases, and a Ghost Ark or a Doomsday Ark. This is a great way to start. Don't buy it from Games Workshop, though. That'll cost you 105 115 dollars. Find it online for 25% off and you'll have yourself an easy effective start to your army. The Ghost Ark can only carry 10 Warriors which is half of what the battleforce brings, so either have them all on foot with the Ghost Ark floating along side to replenish fallen Warriors, split them up 10 by 10 (half in, half walking), or perhaps the best combo, 5 in and the rest walking. 5 Immortals isn't bad, but is your only source of mobile heavy firepower. Sure the Ark can be made into a Doomsday Ark, but don't. You'll lose your transport (unless you go through the pain and wonders of magnetizing... but even then, don't bring a Doomsday Ark to a low point game). 5 Scarab bases is nice, since the only way you can normally get them is through Warrior set boxes.

Grade: B+ (pro-tip: buy a Command Barge with this and you'll have a playable army that will actually be able to perform decently). It comes with an Overlord for your HQ and, when built as an Annihilation Barge, provides a good heavy support.

Want to get some extra units from the bitz of your battleforce? Build the immortals and then take the pieces of the deathmarks, get some greenstuff, thin wire, and 5 lollipops, eat your candy and keep the sticks, use one as a backbone to paste the deathmark back and head, then with some green stuff sculpt the chest of the deathmark (try to use a card for the rib marks), since this is going to get covered by the deathmark's rifle it doesn't have to look perfect, just enough to look decent (alternatively you can use plasticine and then cover it with a bit of varnish for extra hardness), paste the arms and rifle, then use 2 wires to add some detail in the back of the deathmark and the lower backbone, finally with some additional green stuff make a simple whirlwind and put the deathmark over it, now you got a deathmark phasing out of hyperspace! Add bright white-blueish/greenish colours to the whirlwind or black for extra effect. If you did well this means from now on you will always get 5 elites along and 5 troops from your battleforce or immortal set box! (or just build the deathmarks and use the immortal guns with warrior bodies.)

Start out anywhere between 750 pts to 1000pts. As you get used to the army, add in a Barge or two, some Wraiths/Destroyers/Tomb Blades and so forth. The choices above are just to get you used to the shooting and assaulting potential of the army. Obviously at 750 pts you won't be able to fit 1 HQ, 2 Troops, 1 Elite, and a Heavy Support choice. So take the HQ and Troops first. Also, if you're going to take a Royal Court, make sure you know what role would best suit your units. The Court is going to support whatever strategy you form as you learn the army. Take a Necron Lord with a Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs and a Res Orb for your Warriors, a Harbinger of Destruction with a Solar Pulse and Gaze of Flame for your Immortals, and you should be fine for now, if possible try the tip explained at the 'Extra Elite Units' section.

Comes out to be 996 points. Feel free to swap the Tomb Blades with Heavy Destroyers if you want (always take Heavy Destroyers because regular Destroyers are terrible unless you run them in huge numbers). Stick the Warrior units in the Ghost Arks. Tag stuff you don't like with the Triarch Stalker and blast them with everything else as you need to. If you swapped the Tomb Blades for Heavy Destroyers, give the Heavy Destroyers Tank Hunter and watch your opponent cry as you destroy his armour. Keep the Stalker out of range and in cover and just use it for the twin-linking it can afford you.

By the way, a full unit of Warriors in a Ghost Ark broadsiding anything that has been tagged by a Stalker is downright frightening. I played a game where I got 100% hits on rapid-fire and completely annihilated a unit of Thunder Cunt wielding Terminators.

Cron Air - Utilize the awesome spammablity of Necron Fliers. Max out your Heavy Support slots with Doom Scythes or take Night Shrouds if you have the points and money, and put your all Troops in Night Scythes. If you STILL feel you need more fliers, take some elite units (like Deathmarks or Lychguard) for even more Night Scythes or perhaps an allied detachment of Blood Angels for access to Stormravens. With very few codices having access to good AA, you'll clean house. Be careful to plan out your movements carefully, as moving fliers can be tricky, especially when you have six or more of them on the board. Be particularly careful with this list, use it responsibly against players who deserve it. Also, with the new IA Vol 12, you can now take one of the most overpowered fliers in the game! Plonk down 3 of the Night Shrouds and engage trollface. But beware of new Tau! Their markerlights can now boost BS for snap-shots, and their new Gundam Riptide can hit you with crazy amounts of Interceptor shots, and with 90" range there's no avoiding it. Not to mention that almost anything in this army can glance av 11 to death just by massive amount of S5 shots (or rending in case of Kroot snipers). This army can and will take down your Night Scythes and make it difficult for you to win. Cry about this. I dare you.

Wraith Wing - Fill up your Fast Attack slots with Wraiths, and give most (if not all) of them Whip Coils. For HQ, take two Destroyer Lords with Warscythes and Sempiternal Weave, add Mindshackle Scarabs if you have the points. You have a lightning fast army that can take on just about anything in combat. Put your troops in Scythes, but don't load up on them. Your real points should be in your Wraith units. Take Warriors in this list, Immortals are expensive and you need the Gauss for dealing with AV13-14. For fire support, take an Annihilation Barge or three.

Silver Tide - Look at the cover of the old Necron Codex. Then use that as a base for your Necron army. Toss in as many Warriors as you can (140 Warriors and a two Lords with Resurrection Orbs at 2020). Then practice the time honored tactic of stand and shoot. Worked very, very well in 4th edition and was pretty much unbeatable in 3rd edition as the sheer number of gauss weapon rolls would slaughter any vehicle through glancing hits and murder any infantry through auto-wounds. In with the addition of hull points in 6th edition, the Silver Tide is back with a vengeance. Take four squads of 20 warriors, and two squads of 10. Give the squads of 20 Lords with Res. Orbs and give the squads of 10 Ghost Arks. This plus an Overlord with a Catacomb Command Barge, Warscythe, Sempiternal Weave, and Mindshackle Scarabs will give you 2000 points even. The warriors on foot will march across the board with the Ghost Arks providing fire support, mobile cover, and additional resurrections as needed. The Overlord, meanwhile, will fly around and make a nuisance of himself. Watch your opponent flip the table after being unable to get even a single warrior to stay dead.

Scarab Swarm/Farm - Exploit the cheapness of Scarab Swarms. You simply fill your Fast Attack slots with Scarabs instead of Destroyers. Attach a Destroyer Lord with a Lightning Field (that was an old Codex tactic, Lightning Field is now Cryptek-only) and other close combat supporting Wargear and watch the Scarabs scratch away at your opponents and tarpit any infantry unlucky to encounter them for the entire rest of the game. This build is not the most effective, but it is one of the most entertaining builds for a Necron player. The new version of Scarabs in the Necron Codex means that everyone should run it at least once, just to watch them rape vehicles to death in a single round of close combat. If your opponent has a vehicle, even a Land Raider, and you have one or more units of Scarabs, you might as well put on Yakety Sax right now (unless it's a Land Raider Redeemer or a Baal Predator, or any other tank with a flamer on it, which ruins Scarabs' day...). Including 3-9 Spyders means you will have plenty to replace them with, however. Taking Imotekh as your HQ for his night fighting ability will help to ensure your scarabs make it across the table without being obliterated.

Royal Court Disco Inferno - A single Royal Court, fully decked out. 4 Lords with everything but Res Orbs, 5th Lord has everything including a Res Orb. 5 Crypteks, each a different Harbinger with all gear comes out to around 1050 points alone. Purchase HQ most befitting your opponent, spend the rest on Warriors or Immortals for the 2 obligatory troop choices. You'll have very limited anti-armour and anti-horde but against super-elite armies like Space Marines or especially Grey Knights, it'll make mincemeat of them. T5, 2+/3++ and 4+ Res Protocol will ensure these motherfuckers will rarely die and 10 S7 power weapon attacks (15 on the charge) will deliver a spectacular amount of CC violence. Remember Mindshackle scarab attempts, Lightning Field, Gaze of Flame defensive grenades, possible Ether Crystal usage and everything else. If things appear hairy, consider using some of your 5 Tesseracts or Veil of Darkness to the other side of the board. Requires high micromanagement but is surprisingly fun. For added CC lulz, use Zandrekh and stick Obyron in the Court and give them all Furious Charge. Also quite amusing when you force a Swarmlord to punch itself to death via Mindshackle. Harass and abuse to your metallic heart processor's content. In higher points games, take two of these. If you have the points left over after that, take whatever else you feel is necessary. If you really want to see your opponent smash the table in frustration, only take 4 lords and make the 5th Lord an Overlord and let them teleport them right in front of your opponent's line. Turn 1 is unleashing all of those staves and the Tachyon Arrow. Don't forget the shenanigans of the Chronometron, it is easily one of the more broken pieces of Wargear for its cost.

Speed Cron: Perhaps one of the strongest glass hammer lists in the game, this list focuses on using the fastest units possible in every. single. FOC slot. Put your Overlords in Catacomb Command Barges. For elite, either go with Triarch Praetorians with particle casters and voidblades, or stick a ton of Lychguard (Nerf'd, go with Deathmarks instead) in Night Scythes. For troop, whether you bring Immortals, Warriors, or both, shove them into Nightscythes. Fast Attack, bring out the Tomb Blades for jet biking fun. Heavy Support, Doom Scythes. Your opponent will hate you for all the cover saves, warscythe drive by's, twin linked tesla weaponry, and S10 AP1 lines of death you'll be bringing to the battle.

AV 13 Wall: Sometimes known as the Pirate Fleet or Ark Wing due to the appearance of Necron Ark vehicles (which look like pirate ships if you haven't noticed)(wut? Reed boat), this list places emphasis on AV 13 vehicles a-plenty. Take preferably 2 Overlords and stick them both into Catacomb Command Barges. Within their royal courts, take a metric shit ton of Harbingers of Destruction, these nasty bastards are then stuck into squads of warriors who you're really only taking for the Ghost Arks, take as many as possible. Then either take 2 Annihilation Barges and 1 Doomsday Ark, OR 2 Doomsday Arks and 1 Annihilation Barge, OR 3 Doomsday Arks and no barges. Top it all off with a couple Triarch Stalkers (one with Heat Ray, one with Heavy Gauss Cannon) from the elite section to grant Twin-linking to all your heavy fire power. The Amount of AV13/13/11 vehicles that you'll be throwing onto the field should be plenty enough to give your opponent a really bad day.

Tremor-Crons: Do you like making your opponent lose 1/6 (well, not so much, now that 6th lets you take armor saves against Dangerous Terrain wounds) of his army in his first movement phase? Do you want your opponent to stay the hell out of places of cover that happen to be difficult terrain? Then this build is for you! This list revolves around the use of Orikan the Diviner, a C'tan Shard with Writhing Worldscape, and tremor-teks. Orikan makes the entire board difficult terrain for your opponent on the first turn. The C'tan with Writhing Worldscape makes difficult terrain dangerous. Voila! 1/6 of your opponent's moving force just disappeared. Also a fantastic way to maximize damage from units such as doom/night scythes and doomsday arks in the event your opponent decides not to try to move to preserve his army as these babies will drop death upon his army like no other. For additional shits and giggles, Orikan has a chance to pretty much evolve into a cheap C'tan Shard (with a better save) during the game for a while (wear your troll face). And with the tremor-teks, you can make units suddenly find themselves in difficult terrain which just so happens to become dangerous terrain. Not as killy, now that 6th made it possible to armor save against Dangerous Terrain wounds, but still fun. For additional 1st turn hilarity, throw in Imotekh the Stormlord. Watch your opponent rage quit before the end of the first turn.

Anti-MC C'tan tip: A C'tan Shard with Time's Arrow and Entropic Touch costs 235 points. Field a squad of Wraiths with Whip Coils and send them ahead of the Shard to tie up any MC you want dead ASAP in CC. Waltz your Shard up to the MC and let rip Time's Arrow. Your target has only a 1/6th chance to survive being removed from the game completely, no matter his toughness, wounds, save or rules. Entropic Touch is there because it's cheap and can help whittle the MC down to size if it somehow survives. You're free to replace it to taste, but be aware of the points cost.

Indestructo-Lord: While hardly a game winning tactic, this is glorious for taking down IC's and small elite squads. Upgrade the Overlord you have by default to be armed with a Sempiternal Weave, Phase Shifter and Warscythe and watch him hand anyone HQ's their ass on a plate as he soaks up an unholy amount of damage.

For added trolling, throw in Mindshackle Scarabs and a Tesseract Labyrinth. There is nothing funnier in the game than watching Mephiston take wounds off himself before failing a Wounds Test and being removed from play. For 195 points it is liquid cheese.

• Pylon spam: Pylons are probably the single most rapetastic unit to ever grace apocalypse. They're very durable for 420 points at AV14 6 HP, they can deep strike with the worst possible outcome as losing a single HP, they can reach across the board with a ridiculous 120" range strength D main gun that does not care about any saves, aircraft are no safer against it than anything else, and if anything gets even moderately close to it, it can unleash an unholy amount of flux arc shots at absolutely every enemy near it. A trio of pylons is capable of obliterating almost any single unit (on average 3 do 24 HP/wounds - that's 2 Biotitans, 3 Hierodules or a Reaver Titan). Here are some instructions on how to build the things for stupid cheap if your group lets you scratch-build stuff. Site is dead. =(
Fortunately, you can just build some using old bits and globes. Use the old FW rules or just the IA12 set. The new pylon is a variant.

• Transcendent Assholes: With new rules comes new dickery. Necrons have become substantially better in new Apocalypse with the addition of Transcendent C'tan. Why? They get an Str D hellstorm and 12" (18 if u splurge for more) move. Necrons can also force night fighting, which means enemies are limited to 36" range. That means that anything 30.5" away from the C'tan (i.e. most of what can shoot at it) can be hit with Str D automatically. The real benefit though comes from the shield generator - run 4 side by side and hide them with a shield. As soon as possible, run them into combat then retreat everything else the fuck away. Why? When a Transcendent C'tan dies, it hits everything within 4d6" automatically at S10 AP2. Essentially, you use them as suicide bombers - rush to the enemy as they can't ignore the Str D, then watch it blow up a ton of shit because it died. That's right, this is a shooty combat unit that punishes your enemy for killing them. Did I mention the models are really small too (as small as a normal C'tan model) so you can just hide them too?

• The Deep Strike: OMG WTF BBQ! This thing has more punch than Rihanna’s face! Take as many psychomancer Crypteks with veils of darkness as you can. And anything else that can deep strike, like jump pack units. Go first or second at your choice. Then use your strategic asset on “Precise Coordinates.” Then jump on the maddafakku like a hungry hobo—deep strike next to his HQ units with Deathmarks and get the easy SVP’s. Attack behind enemy lines in the perfect counter-deployment BY STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO THEM ON THE FIRST TURN. Prepare to lose friends over this! It is now the most single game-breaking tactic for Necrons. You only need to really be afraid of Tyranids/IG for sheer number of bodies and Grey Knights, who hate deep-strikers with a passion.

Formations in main book:

• Acquisition Phalanx: Why would you have this many Lychguard? It’s cool that they and Trazyn could generate more VP’s, but these guys are pricy as all get out!

Infinite Phalanx: If you have 100 warriors lying around with no idea what to do with him, call them one group! They get a 3+ reanimation and just won’t die! Support with Ghost arks. Really, use the older formations and add lords with Resurrection orbs, unless you really have this many toys.

Baleful Necropolis: Mother ‘eff! This thing is expensive! Who has that much money and monoliths lying around? Stay away from this thing! It’s all OMGWTFBYOB!

The Royal War Council of Mandragora: Expensive as all get out for the individual models. Combine with two or three Gauss Pylons and you can auto-win about any game. All those cool gimmicks? You can use them all at once! 1 free asset for being a high command during the break, plus one more for each of the three conditions won in the game. Oh and d3 victory points for satisfying all 3 conditions.

Warzone: Damnos Formations:

• Translocator Flight: Brought to you by Damnos: The Grave-Maker! On the off-chance you have units that can’t deep strike for whatever reason [where are your damn Crypteks?], use this. The minimum 3 Nightscythes lets you use the 15” pie plate to take d3+1 units across the table. So, for 4 inches between each base, with 12 more for any of those units within a given Nightscythe +72” in base translocation could take you between 92” and 104”. Or an inconceivable 7 and 8.5 feet! Per turn! 300 pts never tasted so good.
o Really, you could DS epic hordes of guardsmen, without scatter thanks to the right asset, right in front of enemy lines as long as a substantial portion of them are under the template. Even just 2 nightscythes lets you use the 10” plate. This will wreck games and make folks flip tables.

• Doom Scythe Deathbringer Flight: Perfect for wrecking vehicles or hordes of units for +1/2 again their number in STR 10 hits. TOASTY!

• Canoptek Swarm: Play this on the first turn. See Damnos book. Buy some instant mold and some sculpy dough, then save the cash to buy the Canoptek spyders and bases if you can’t mold things. Perfect formation for trashing enemy fortifications. 2-3 of those, with 40-60 scarabs total, should provide enough chances to destroy nearly all enemy cover/buildings. Expect to see more of mountains and forests for future boards as a result of this formation.

• Lawbringer Phalanx: I suppose if you have the models…in any case, for the white dwarf version over the Warzone: Damnos book. Use the white dwarf version, if at all. The stalker could get void shields, extra AV and help the stupid praetorians not die.

• Ghost Strider Phalanx: As above, except the damnos one is ok. White Dwarf is still better. Can deep strike as a group once per game. Pair up with the Precise Coordinates strategic asset and you can potentially wreck a Titan. Use the white dwarf version instead. Quantum Shielding allows arks to have AV 15, but you need to roll 2+ to pass hits of any kind [even destroyer hits] onto the Tomb Blades.

• Court of the Flayer King: Warzone Damnos gave us the impossible: A reason to play with Flayed Ones! One pack and an Overlord gets you a high command unit. Which means you could cheaply get a high command formation and free strategic asset with some spare ghost ark bodies and green stuff.

• Host of the Red Harvest: Something you do with an extra Destroyer Lord and too many destroyers. The normal ones get to fire all-together to make a flamer template and the heavies can fire together to make a STR: D weapon. Maybe not that great, but then again, since they count as one unit according to the book, they’re harder to route….

• Warzone Damnos Pylon: A variant of the traditional/Forgeworld pylon. Use the Forgeworld book instead.

Former[?] Apocalypse Tactics:

RIP Previous Formations. Here’s how you can resurrect them for your gaming group.

• Monolith Phalanx: one of the most HATED tactics in apocalypse, simply plonk 2-5 monoliths on the field and watch as all of your troops gain 5+ invulnerable saves which usually isn't much but consider that every, single freaking Necron will have it and gain bonuses to their RP rolls (revs on a 2+ lol) and you'll have an army that will simply refuse to die no matter what's thrown at it. Since Monoliths are absurdly durable and a large number of them is bound to ruin even a Titan's shit (especially if one or more of them is a doomsday monolith), you will win almost all the time even with 5th edition gauss weapon nerfs. If you convince your opponent to play with 3rd or 4th edition vehicle damage rules then you will be pretty much invincible. Keep a troll face on at all times while using this tactic and watch your opponents rage impotently. Monoliths are no longer as impervious as they once were, but have dropped in price significantly (35 points is significant?), so now you can compensate for your less durable Monoliths by fielding even MORE shit. Combine this with the Pylon formation to make your enemies cry.
EDIT: No longer a formation, so unless your local group is very friendly and lets you not only count WBB as RP but also use things that don't really work and are outdated, you're SOL. Farewell Monolith Phalanx, the single best formation in Apocalypse. Dude, it’s totally valid. Just change the words “we’ll be back” to “Reanimation Protocols” because it’s the same thing! Still, ask your group.

• Resurrection Warcell: Is fine. Just drop the Resurection Scarabs as a strategic asset and it should run just fine. Found in Apoc. Reloaded. This all-immortal load out allows you to summon spyders and/or scarabs on every turn and deep-strike them in. /notbadface/

• Stormcaller Warcell: Found in Apoc. Reloaded, and great for counter-attacking other deepstriking units. A barrage template that’s STR 7 and rending? Yes please! Just change the Necron wraiths to Canoptek wraiths and then explicitly make the Necron lord a destroyer lord, because you would have had to buy the upgrade for this unit in the last edition anyway.
o Not to mention how totally boss it is to have wraiths with 2++ saves, a 2-foot bubble of Deep-strike denial [50/50 chance of mishap], just strike the strike-force rule and slap the new ‘battle formation’ label on it. And have fun with it.

• Undying Legion: 40 warriors and a Pylon. Functions a lot better than the Endless Phalanx. Free Resurrection Orb upgrade for all of them. Give them ghost arks for support and enjoy the lolz. Or use that Translocator Flight as mentioned above. Found in the 2008 Imperial Armor Apocalypse book.

• Gauss Pylon Network: Wait, how is this out of date? Just put 3 of them together and you have monolith phalanx. With pylons. Imperial Armor Apocalypse book. Then tell your opponent to hide their kids, hide their wife and hide their husband, cuz you’re blastin’ errbody up there! Buy old world globes and Necron parts.